DEATH MOB: THE DEATH OF THE FLASH MOB

In September 2009 Oprah Winfrey launched the 24th season of her show with a ‘flash mob’ – which consisted of 21,000 people fenced into an area on the streets of Chicago gradually breaking into a choreographed dance, while the Black Eyed Peas performed a specially Oprah-ized version of their latest hit.

It looked pretty cool, for a giant choreographed dance. But it wasn’t a flash mob – described on Wikipedia as… a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

So Oprah just didn’t seem to get it and clumsily christened it after one of the greater guerilla concepts of this decade to use it as a daytime US TV novelty. In fairness to her, she’s not the only major corporation to smear their greasy hands on the flash mob. And regardless, the flash mob had a good innings – in its 7 year lifetime since 2002, there have been some spine-tingling moments. Moments of confusion, surprise and exhilaration. Here’s two of our favourites..

Frozen Grand Central

Sound of Music, Antwerp Central Station

Nevertheless, with the concept now bruised, abused and in tatters, we decided it was time that somebody showed some mercy. And what better way to have done so than with, well, a flash mob. ‘Death Mob’ saw 250 people collapsing to play dead on Dublin’s busy South William Street to declare an end to the Flash Mob.